5 Best DS Emulators For PC | PokemonCoders (2024)

Looking for the best DS emulator for PC can be tricky. That’s because there are several of them and they have multiple versions. Don’t worry, as we have our list of the best DS emulators that you can get for your PC.

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Is Nintendo one of your favorite video games? Or might be that you’re an old-school gamer who still remembers when the Nintendo DS was the device to have?

Playing some of your favorite DS games on the PC may be appealing to you. But how do you get started? It is difficult to determine which of the many DS emulators is the best.

Read: Pokemon DS Rom Hacks List

Inthisarticle,we’lllookatthebestDSemulatorsavailableforWindowsPC.

Note: For Android users, we’ve also created a guide to help you pick the best DS emulator for Android, be sure to check them.

Table of Contents

BEST Nintendo DS Emulators for PC – Works Well for Windows 7, 8, and 10

05. DuoS

The DuoS emulator is a prime example of being a plane and a generic emulator. The good thing is that you can get what you want and what you need from an emulator and you can get a DuoS emulator with ease.

Strengths

Perhaps the strength is that this emulator is simple and easy to get. You don’t have to deal with bugs and emulation issues.

Weaknesses

The weakness is definitely where it is just a plain emulator. It doesn’t have a quick save and quick load feature. It doesn’t support cheats as well as a turbo button.

04. NeonDS

The NeonDS can be better than DuoS. The NeonDS can fulfill the basic needs of a DS emulator. It can be a bit tricky to use this emulator, but when you find the right settings, then things will work out well. So make sure you get a reliable NeonDS emulator.

Strengths

The NeonDS is easy to get, and it doesn’t have any issues when it comes to emulating the games. It also has save states and supports cheats to use.

Weaknesses

Setting up the settings for this emulator can be tricky. If you don’t know the other setting terms like memory space, sound drives, and others then this will be very tricky to use.

03. iDeaS

The naming on this one is clever because it simply appears iDS. Anyway, this emulator can be easy to use and can be very effective. It doesn’t need to have any settings done but you can adjust it if you want to.

One other thing is that as of now, this emulator is the only DS emulator where you can separate the lower screen from the top screen. It doesn’t affect the game and the lower part which is the touch screen area is still functional and that’s really cool when you get iDeaS emulator.

Strengths

The screen splitting can be a good idea in some cases and you can change the resolution. You can also adjust the turbo speed on this one to make it fast or much faster.

Weaknesses

The emulator doesn’t support cheats so that could be a weakness, but there are no other issues with the emulation procedure.

02. No$GBA

No$GBA in its earliest versions was bad. The audio was distorted and the frame rate was very slow.

The good thing is that over the years, No$GBA has gotten better and is one of the best DS emulators usable for PC and other systems depending on the version of the No$GBA that you can get.

Strengths

No$GBA is a good basic emulator for the DS. Just as we mentioned the latest version has fixed all of its problems. The emulation can run smoothly and the audio is clear. The emulator also has some nice features in-gamethat you can use like save states.

Weaknesses

One weakness is that depending on the download, you may need to set up the settings of the emulator. You need to set up things like frame rate, sound, and others. That’s when the emulator may run faulty if the settings are done from the start.

01. DeSmuME

DeSmuME is by far the best DS emulator usable for PCs that we highly recommend. The problem would be the ROMs, but that is beside the point.

There are multiple versions of this emulator so the older ones may be buggy so make sure to follow up and use the updated version to ensure fast and efficient emulation.

Strengths

There are a lot of good things with this emulator. The first thing is that you can use the old quick save and quick load features. You can save in states which can be a good form of feature where you don’t have to worry about save slots in the actual game.

Then there is the fact that you can press the turbo button which you can speed up the game, which can be very beneficial. It also supports cheat codes and a USB controller.

Weaknesses

There really isn’t a weakness to this emulator. Perhaps if you find flaws, then we can just state that you’re using the outdated versions of the DeSmuME emulator.

Related: Best Pokemon Games for Nintendo DS

Conclusion

People may think that DS emulators are hard to find especially for beginners. But there is a good amount of them and you can always get them for free and this list just showed you the 5 best DS emulator for PC you can get.

For beginners and those who seek maximum Nintendo DS gaming for PC, opt for DeSmuME.



5 Best DS Emulators For PC | PokemonCoders (2024)

FAQs

Which DS emulator allows cheats? ›

The DraStic emulator also supports cheat codes, with an extensive database running into thousands. Finally, it also supports fast forward, allowing you to increase emulation speed. On the negative side, DraStic is yet to implement Wi-Fi support, and there's no multiplayer mode at this point.

Do DS emulators work on PC? ›

Emulators are applications that mimic the hardware of other platforms, such as game consoles. To start playing DS games on your PC or Mac, you'll just need to download and install DeSmuME, which is easy. Then, you'll be able to download games as ROM files and play them in the emulator.

Is neonds safe? ›

This software program is potentially malicious or may contain unwanted bundled software.

Are DS emulators illegal? ›

On its own, the possibility of playing older games in whichever environment you please sounds like a nice option to have. But while emulators are free and legal, ROMs are not.

Does MelonDS allow cheats? ›

How to Use the Cheats Database. Note: It's recommended you do this in Desktop mode so you can easily copy from the cheats database into MelonDS. After adding cheats, you can use MelonDS in Game Mode.

Is DraStic ds emulator on PC? ›

DraStic DS Emulator Apk is available in the chrome web store just install it and learn how you use it on pc. DraStic DS Emulator Apk is available in the chrome web store just install it and learn how you use it on pc.

Is the fast DS emulator good? ›

Fast DS Emulator

It has all of the basic features, such as external controller support, save states, load states, and customizable on-screen gamepads. In terms of compatibility, the emulator did fine with the half a dozen games we tested. The lower Google Play rating is mostly due to some bugs and issues.

Is it legal to emulate games? ›

Yes, emulators are legal. But we all know that the overwhelming use of them is in illegal situations. What percentage of emulators are only used to play homebrewed games or commercial games that an individual has personally backed up? Almost all other uses are illegal.

What is the most optimized emulator? ›

BlueStacks is preferred for gaming and is easy to set up and use with common functionality like screen recording and debugging. BlueStacks Android emulator is the oldest and the most popular Android emulator in the mobile gaming market. It's easy to install, run, and play games on.

Why is drastic better than DeSmuME? ›

And it is true that Desmume is a very demanding emulator, it will lag on anything over 2x resolution because everything is rendered on the CPU, it does not have a Hardware renderer. And Drastic will pretty much run on anything, it is very well optimized.

Is mGBA reliable? ›

Even in the initial version, games generally played without problems. mGBA has only gotten better since then, and now boasts being the most accurate GBA emulator around.

Is Visual Boy Advance legal? ›

Game Boy Advance

Emulators are legal. ROMs of commercial products are illegal to distribute. And obviously VBA is an emulator, not a ROM.

Is DeSmuME open source? ›

DeSmuME is an open-source Nintendo DS emulator. It is the most accurate Nintendo DS emulator and is actively developed by the DeSmuME Team. It can be run from the command line directly or as a graphical program. The regular version now allows for increasing internal resolution.

Can you use cheats on emulators? ›

Emulators offer the possibility to have another type of cheat codes directly modifying one specific RAM address, and tools to find these wanted RAM addresses and create cheats for them. Some cheat formats (notable are the DS ones) are so advanced they offer the possibility to hook new programming on the game.

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